


Interlude

by earlgreytea68



Series: Lucky [7]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:20:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27239452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: The prompt was: an outtake from their CA road trip in Reculer pour mieux sauter
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Series: Lucky [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/194135
Comments: 59
Kudos: 186





	Interlude

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mepeters81](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mepeters81/gifts).



> This was for this year's Inceptiversary auction. The recipient has agreed to share it with all of you! Thank you for the wonderful prompt that let me revisit Lucky's 'verse, and I hope you liked the fic (and all of the rest of you, too ;-))!

“Have you ever been here before?” Eames asked.

_Here_ was a farmers’ market on a dramatic cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. They’d stopped because Eames fancied “a peach, or an orange, I don’t care, some sort of fresh fruit.” Arthur was trying to imagine predicting that he and Eames would ever end up going on an adventure that was a _farmers’ market_ , like, what the fuck was his life and he honestly loved it, Eames looked in his element strolling the little stands and charming old ladies over freshly-baked scones.

Then again, Eames always looked in his element, no matter what he was doing. It was his job. Arthur had learned to stop envying the ease with which Eames seemed to slither into places, though, since now he knew how much of an act it really was and how much Eames struggled underneath that smooth exterior.

Eames’s question caught Arthur off-guard, in the middle of his musings. He took a second to translate it, then said, “Here? I don’t even know where the fuck we are, you wouldn’t let me look at a map.”

“I thought maybe on a previous wandering,” Eames explained.

“Do you think one day I hopped in my car to drive along the coast stopping off at farmers’ markets?”

“Darling, you are an enigma, one never knows with you.”

“I never went anywhere without a plan,” said Arthur softly. “You know that.”

Eames smiled at him and took his hand, squeezed it.

And a man walking by muttered to the woman walking with him, “Christ, imagine the nerve of just showing up here and holding hands in front of all of us like we want to see that.”

Arthur felt Eames go tense next to him. “Leave it,” he said, because what he didn’t want to do on his vacation with Eames was clean up after a fight.

“You don’t think I could take him?” Eames demanded hotly.

“Yes, yes, you’re very big and tough, I don’t feel like listening to you whine about a black eye all night, I can think of better ways to spend the evening.”

“I wouldn’t whine!” protested Eames, affronted.

“Sexier ways to spend the evening,” Arthur amended.

“You think you are going to distract me by bringing up sex but it will not work,” Eames sniffed. “Not this time.”

“Uh-huh,” said Arthur, unconcerned, because the man and the woman had already drifted into the swirl of the crowd, and Eames was still standing next to him with his hand still in Arthur’s. So Arthur used his hand to lift Eames’s to his mouth, pressed a kiss to his knuckle. “Fuck them, huh?” he said. “Let’s go get you whatever that piece of fruit was that you were looking for.”

“Darling, I’ve changed my mind, I think I want one of those funnel cakes instead.”

That seemed predictable and also Arthur agreed, so they headed toward the little food truck selling funnel cakes toward the front of the farmers’ market. And, as luck would have it, who was in line for a funnel cake but the homophobic asshole.

“Oh, darling,” said Eames, shattering Arthur’s meager hope that Eames might not recognize him. “ _Please_ let us make out in the funnel cake line? Just a little bit?”

“Well,” grumbled Arthur, “I _suppose_ , if it’s for a good cause.”

Eames grinned at him and caught up his head in his hands and leaned in to kiss him—

\--and never made it because the homophobic asshole had begun yelling at the poor kid making the funnel cakes.

“Are you an _idiot_?” the asshole was sputtering at the kid. “No, seriously, I’ve never met anyone so _fucking stupid_ in my entire life.”

“Oh, lovely,” muttered Eames, “he’s homophobic _and_ verbally abusive.”

“S-sir,” stammered the kid, “you ordered it all the way. That comes with strawberries, see?” The kid indicated a sign that did indeed very clearly state that “all the way” included strawberries.

“I am _allergic_ to strawberries,” the asshole fumed. “Why the fuck would I order something I am _allergic_ to?”

“I’ll change it for you,” the kid said anxiously, taking the funnel cake back.

“You think I feel like standing around here waiting for you to make another funnel cake because of how _fucking incompetent_ you are?” the asshole demanded.

The kid looked like she was going to cry, so Arthur said mildly, “I think maybe you didn’t read the sign.”

The asshole looked at Arthur in shock. “I’m _sorry_?”

“It’s possible you didn’t read the sign,” Arthur suggested pleasantly. “Maybe.”

“The sign’s right there,” spat out the man. “You think I’m too stupid to see the sign?”

“You were on your phone,” the kid blurted out, and then looked terrified at her own daring. “Sir,” she said, and scurried away from the window to deal with the new funnel cake.

“What do you think, honey?” Arthur asked loudly. “That all the way does look good, doesn’t it, sweetheart?” When Arthur looked at Eames, his lips were twitching while the rest of his expression was studiously grave. When Arthur looked back at the homophobic asshole, he looked positive apoplexic.

The kid was timidly holding another funnel cake out to the asshole, who was glaring at Arthur and Eames.

“Excuse me,” Arthur said, “did you want that funnel cake?”

The asshole, grumbling, swiped at the funnel cake.

The kid managed to say, “Free of charge.”

“Goddamn right it’s free of charge,” snapped the asshole, and then gave Arthur and Eames a look, like somehow he’d won in the Asshole Sweepstakes.

“I thought we weren’t getting in a fight,” murmured Eames.

“That wasn’t a fight,” Arthur denied. “No one got a black eye.”

“Don’t worry, love, that definitely gave me all sorts of ideas for sexier ways to spend our evening,” rejoined Eames.

Arthur rolled his eyes and said to the poor kid manning the funnel cake truck, “We’ll have two funnel cakes all the way, and we’ll pay for his, too.”

“ _Darling_ ,” Eames said. “How chivalrous of you. I’ll be right back.”

“Be right back?” Arthur echoed, frowning, because there was no way Eames was up to any good. Arthur leaned back, away from the truck, to watch Eames camouflage himself into the crowd in that way only Eames could accomplish, heading unerringly toward the homophobic asshole. Arthur smiled to himself and turned back to collect their funnel cakes.

“There,” Eames said, rematerializing at Arthur’s side, and laid a generous heap of money on the counter. “Tip for all your troubles,” he told the astonished-looking kid. “Arsehole over there had a change of heart.” Eames nodded vaguely.

The kid managed, confused, “Wha…?”

“Let’s go,” Arthur murmured to Eames, and led him away from the funnel cake truck, toward where they’d tucked their car into the parking lot. “Did you pick his pocket?” Arthur asked.

“Now, now, a thief never tells,” Eames replied primly.

Arthur rolled his eyes again, before sliding into the car and turning it on. He remarked, as he navigated back onto the highway, resuming their aimless trek, “I worry for Lucky’s boyfriends, I really do. And her girlfriends. Whichever. I worry for them.”

“ _I_ worry for them, too. You’ll be so fearsome and grim, frowning them down in your sharp edges with a gun in your hand.”

“I’m not going to have a gun in my hand to meet her boyfriends and girlfriends.”

Eames snorted.

“Well, at least I’m not going to pick their pockets!” Arthur retorted.

“You can learn important things about a bloke by picking their pockets. For instance, that one?” Eames performed a bit of sleight of hand, then opened his fist over Arthur’s lap. “Carried a _lot_ of rubbers.”

Condoms rained down over Arthur’s lap as he drove, and Arthur found himself laughing helplessly. “Jesus,” he said.

“If Lucky’s boyfriend walked in with that many condoms in his pocket, I would _end_ him,” Eames announced.

“Jesus Christ,” Arthur said, still laughing, swiping now at the pile of condoms on his lap. “Get these away from me, this is disgusting.”

“I thought that might come in handy, if you’re promising me a sexier way to spend our evening.”

“This is the _opposite_ of that,” Arthur informed her, “you are ruining your chance at a sexy evening.”

“Hmm,” remarked Eames thoughtfully. “I don’t think I am.”

“Asshole,” Arthur replied, and loved him kind of a lot.


End file.
